The Armenian government will spend 20 million drams (US$49,200) to erect a statue of music conductor Ohan Durian in Yerevan.

Durian, a Jerusalem native who moved to Armenian in 1957 at the invitation of Catholicos Vazgen I, was awarded the title of People's Artist of the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1967.

Durian was the head conductor of the Yerevan State Opera and Ballet Theater in the early 1970s. He left the country in 1975 and returned when Armenia proclaimed its independence in 1991.

Durian died in 2011 and is buried at Yerevan’s Komitas Pantheon.